Editor,
Since Sept. 11, I have been watching the developments within President Bush's administration first with caution, then with frustration and now with fear.
It seems our current president has found it appropriate to use the horror that so many people experienced last September as a reason to advance a political agenda. I am increasingly frightened by the manner in which everything from civil liberties to fiscal responsibility have been razed by this administration's opportunism.
Rather than hiding behind waving flags, citizens of this country need to speak out. Voices need to be raised before a right-wing agenda that some have fought against for decades suddenly becomes more of a reality than it already is.
In a mere four months, Bush has succeeded in pushing an unending line of new legislation through Congress. Suddenly almost every issue that the corporate backed politicos have been trying for years to legislate has become something to do with "terrorism" and so deserving of immediate and unanimous passage in Congress.
Opening the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for drilling. Undoing one of the most important nuclear missile treaties in history. Censoring numerous sources of alternative media. Granting police, CIA and FBI further rights to invade your privacy. Dumping billions more into the same agencies that obviously failed to do their job with the billions of dollars already poured into their budgets before Sept. 11.
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In the recently released budget, Bush has proposed some $358 billion in military spending with an additional chunk solely for the "war on terror." The military-industrial complex that bankrupted this nation - financially and morally - is back in full force.
This generation and the next will suffer from its consequences. And who knows how involved the administration is with the whole Enron mess. Is anyone out there flinching? Is anyone out there concerned that in one fell blast, we have returned to 1980s levels of military waste at the expense of our economy, social programs, education, environmental consciousness and our nation's lower classes?
There's just not enough money, they say, for these programs. Yet, for outrageous military spending they've somehow "found" the money. All the while, with any comment regarding "terrorism," all this becomes justifiable.
It is truly an outrage that this administration has utilized the horrible events of Sept. 11 to sell this country the idea that what they're doing to our future is required because of "terrorism." It is more outrageous that every nation in the world now has an example to follow in labeling anything that they disagree with as "terrorism," and the object of military force.
Furthermore, this country's contribution to global terrorism are now conveniently swept away. Due to this administration's opportunism, "terrorism" has become to the 2000s what "communism" was to the 1950s, and anything goes in order to win this "war."
Perhaps someday we'll try prevention through global justice instead of reaction through global war.
Jeff Duneman
Graduate student in Latin American Studies
